The Pentagon Is Freaking Out About a Potential War with China
politico.comThere should be few things more horrific for the leader of a nation than their military planners not freaking out about something.
Yes this is literally their job and they are doing it well
If they’re not then if this somehow does happen then the US will be unprepared and won’t have contingency plans, and things can change very quickly- for example, most people in the US didn’t support going to war in WWII until Pearl Harbor.
Let me guess - the answer is to spend more $$$...
On the upside, the industrial base is now being quickly rebuilt and rates of production of most kinds of relevant munitions has greatly increased, and some of the new production capacity for those is already coming online, with a lot more in the pipeline. It's good while it's happening in peacetime. By the time China's turn will come, things will be in a much better place.
By the time China's turn will come, things will be in a much better place.
You think?
China is already outproducing the US in armaments. That's what happens when you have a much greater manufacturing capacity. What happened to Japan in WW2 is what is destined to happen to the US in WW3.
Did you know that Japan had 3-4 times as many aircraft carriers as the US at the start of 1942? But where the US could produce many more carriers over the next 3 years, Japan couldn't. The US started WW2 with 3 carriers, Japan had about 12. Three years later, the US had replaced all of its losses and had built an extra 150(!) or so carriers, while Japan had none at all.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/22/asia/us-navy-chief-china-...
Well, in case of China it will not be just the U.S. but the entire free world against them. Surely together we can make it. Also, what do you realistically suggest doing if that wasn't possible? Just let the free world cease to exist? That's precisely what's at stake.
We need to deter China from invading for the period before internal problems (demography, debt, environment, and lack of avenues for further fast growth which is necessary to keep population content with dictatorship) either makes it a lot weaker, or makes it democratic, both of which is a good solution. It's not such a long time to wait - "peak China" according to most estimates is merely 10-15 years away so a generation from now, they will be less dangerous to us than they are today. Deterring them by at least making sure that invasion of Taiwan, even if likely to succeed, will not eventually worth it, is what we need and it's not all that hard to do. I'm sure Putin regrets invasion of Ukraine big time now and that's exactly the message we need to send Xi: "even if you can probably succeed, it's better to not try".
This is why Ukrainian war is very useful: it provides a reason to increase armament production capacity, which is being done now. That won't be possible in a democracy otherwise.
not be just the U.S. but the entire free world against them
The "entire free world" (aka 'The West') is not as big in population, and has nowhere near the manufacturing capacity as China alone.
There is a meme around which shows 'The world as the West sees it" which contains just one-eighth of the World's population. Called 'The Golden Billion' by some. The other seven-eighths of the World's population has bad memories of the shit they have received from the "entire free world" over the last several hundred years. And if you look closely, you'll find that they are the ones who refuse to join the West in sanctions on Russia, and are the ones queueing up to join the BRICS, SCO, and other 'non-Western' alliances.
We're coming to the end of a very long era: The Era where Western Nations were the Masters of the World. It's lasted several centuries, but the World is about to revert to the setup before about 1600 where the two powerhouses of the world are India and China as they had been for several thousand years before then.
We in the West are going to have to get used to that.
Well, we are the places where rich and smart people will always move to live. Because over here, their human rights and property rights are guaranteed and they can innovate. That alone more or less guarantees perpetual leadership.
Also, we have an advantage in diversity.
If people can move freely between places, the most attractive places are automatically the strongest long term. You want to tell me that at some potential future point, more people will try to immigrate to China than to the U.S.? That's not going to ever happen, period. If people can't move freely between places, the place rots and destroys itself very quickly as everyone is concerned with one thing: how to run away from it.
>The West . . . has nowhere near the manufacturing capacity as China alone.
That's not true.
It is not even true of low-end manufacturing because on the low end, the critical input is energy, and the US has much lower energy costs than China because China must import most of its energy.
It is not even true of low-end manufacturing because on the low end, the critical input is energy, and the US has much lower energy costs than China because China must import most of its energy.
Just keep believing that. Energy is but one input cost.
But a question: "If it's so much cheaper to produce stuff in America, why is the World's manufacturing done in China?"
The answer to your question is that you are exaggerating the extent to which the world's manufacturing done in China.
I have a challenge that I often hand out to people: Go for a mere 7 days without using or eating anything which is marked 'Made in China', and also without using anything that while it is not marked 'Made in China' contains Chinese components or ingredients. Off you go.
> By the time China's turn will come ...
Foreshadowing much? ;)
> New NATO member Finland, for example, got approval for 65 F-35 fighters only in February of 2020 and is slated to have the planes delivered next year.
NATO countries are little more than self organising drones with their own budgets to buy stuff from the mothership, a legacy of the post-WW2 age of individualism.
Is it a better way to build redundancy into protecting a philosophy?
Some people reckon you cant kill an idea.